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12 August 2010

Printing A5 Pages

If you have an A5 organiser, it is the easiest size to create your own pages for. Anyone looking at my A5 will hardly find any preprinted pages in it, apart from may be some of the original ones that came with it!

So let me try to explain how I do it. It is not complicated, but takes longer to explain than it does to do. Taking an A5 To Do List as an example because I used a lot of these pages.

The first thing you might notice is the document contains 4 pages all the same, in A4 format... Did you forget Steve we are doing A5.... no we start with four pages of A4 and when we booklet print them they become 4 A5 pages on an A4 sheet of paper...

A quick recap about European paper sizes... A4 is 297 by 210 mm and A5 is 210 by 148 mm in other words A5 is half the size of A4.

So the next step is to booklet print the four A4 pages on to one sheet of A4 paper. The four pages then become A5 size pages back to back like the drawing below.

So anything you have in A4 format can be made to fit A5, just by booklet printing it. To be able to booklet print you need a printer that can double side print... either manually or preferably automatically using a duplex attachment. It is worth considering this next time you buy a new printer.

I've only ever used HP printers and all of our current ones which are a mixture of Officejets (Colour ink-jet) and Laserjet (B&W Laser) printers all offer booklet printing. How to get your printer in to booklet mode varies, so I can't attempt to show you all the different ones here, but there is a sample screen below.

If you are using Word in Windows, go to File, Print and when the Print dialogue window pops up. Click on Properties next to the name of the printer.

Some printers offer you a simple 'What do you want to do' type menu and you simply select 'Booklet Printing' 'Left hand Binding'

In others you might find it under the 'Finishing Tab'' under the heading "Booklet Layout" You might need to experiment a little to find the setting on your own printer but once you have discovered them, note them down for future reference.

Those of you using a Mac then you will also find similar dialogue window by clicking on the down arrow next to the name of the printer to expand the menu. Then on the menu in the middle click on it and then click on Booklet Printing. It's fairly self explanatory from there onwards.

So once your printer is set up, you print out the whole document and you will end up with something like this:

It will be, or should be the same on both sides of the paper. Cut the page in half and put the outer edges of the original page together and punch them and for each sheet of A4 you will have 2 pages in A5 but double sided and collated correctly.

Once you have mastered this you will find there is no excuse for not having the exact format of page you need for what ever task or project.

If you have any questions please pop them in to the comments and I will do my best to answer them.
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I have not bought a flex yet but have played with the templates and made a a5 diary however it obviously booklet prints but does not print as a book that could be stapled to fit the flex. i am sure its just adjust the dates file rather than the format but just cant get my head aroung it. has anyone done it?

hi i'm new to the site and have just found your wonderful printable pages -but i can't print the table gridlines ! I have been looking for the solution all over the internet and have tried many different settings with no success. do you have any ideas, i'm using the current version of adobe acrobat.

Hello Steve - quick question. For the example you used, the To Do sheets. How many copies would you need to indicate if you wanted 1 A4 page printed on both sides. When you open the To Do list template, does it already have two displayed and therefore you would print 2 copies to get 4 (2 on front and 2 on back) or does the template only have 1 and I wuold need to select 4 copies to get the same result. Thanks.

Hi Yes if the template has two pages already then just print 2 copies and you will get 4 pages to a sheet of A4. Some templates have 4 copies in them already. They aren't consistent! Some only have 1 so ask for 4 copies in that case. RegardsSteve

I printed out the day per page for my A5 and the size came out ok considering that I printed on regular letter size paper...I just got a ream of A4 paper to redo it. However, when I printed the pages the order came out weird when i went to punch them and put them in my planner. For example, I have one page with August 23rd on the front of one page and the 20th on the back of that page and then the next page is August 21st on the fron and the 22nd on the back...then the cycle repeats - every 4th day is on the front of the page 3 days prior...its not in sequential order when I printed it in booklet style. Any idea how to fix this?

I am using my printer at the office which is a big multi-functional printer/scanner/fax...and whatnot. I'm not too technical but cutting the pages in half and feeding them manually into the side sounds like it could work. Or I could use my printer at home which is an HP. I had trouble figuring out the margins and how to print these out..i had a lot of trial and error for the ones I have now and would rather get it right than wasting my A4 paper...I can practice on regular paper.

Hey Steve...one more question. I have FINALLY got the pages the way I wanted (after all that emailing lol)...I am not able to print on my duplex printer at work...how do I print A5 pages on A4 paper without a duplex printer? if they print 2 to a page, I can't really print even and odd pages, no?

Hi AliceOK does your printer have a manual feed tray that will take A5 paper? If it does cut the paper in half and feed it in through the manual feed tray and then print odd numbered pages first. Let the paper cool down a bit turn them over and make sure they are in the right order and then print even numbered pages. I print mine this way on A5 paper. Steve

After deciding that I really want my planner to work for me, I am rebuilding my FC planner and have tweaked your 2ppd a little so that the appointment/time page showed 4 coloured columns to track my family's separate activities, work schedules etc. This afternoon, I spent a very frustrating couple of hours trying to remember which settings on my printer will print my 2 page per day daily inserts. I knew it was in there somewhere but I couldn't see the forest for the stack of scrap paper!

Finally, I thought, go back to the source; these clever people are smart enough to allow for my dopey factor and explain how to print their own template :)

I'm having trouble printing these, or I'm confused. I was testing with my print preview first and when I do the Booklet on a4 it's not lined up right, it's off the pages completely. If I cut the a4 to a5 do I need to adjust anything on the template for it to fit an a5 or does it print on the a5 without a problem? My print preview shows it off the page???